Hi, I'm hopeful a few experts here will have been through this and are able to help out... sorry it's a bit long.
I have been using Apple Music for the past few years, my system is based around an iMac that I leave iTunes running on (in one login, other family members log in using other accounts for other reasons). I have a few AirPlay devices around the house and I control the music using the Apple Remote app to control the iMac iTunes installation from either my iPad or iPhone.
All has been well, until recently I started noticing library corruptions happening - stupid things like tracks being in the wrong order, other tracks disappearing, yet being correct and in-order on the main iMac. Apple support were painful and useless at fixing it despite being reproduced on several iOS devices and several Macs so I started looking at other streaming services.
Spotify (the obvious choice) has a nice UI, but the audio quality is horrible on the main HiFi (Apple Airport Express into Arcam Alpha 7, KEF Q5's) - the compression is very noticeable. Then I tried Tidal. Even in the base level account type, the audio quality was noticeably better, and HiFi is great. I liked the UI (although not without it's glitches) so wanted to switch over. The problem is, I can't work out how to get the same kind of experience.
I don't want my iPad constantly tied up with the Tidal client streaming to the Airport Express. That's not practical.
The desktop client doesn't allow selection of audio output - I know I can set the iMac to output all it's audio over AirPlay, and AirFoil allows me to control which speaker remotely. It's a kludge, but it kinda works. Why Spotify and Tidal can't build this into their apps, I have no idea.
But even if I get that running, there's no way of remotely controlling the Tidal desktop client (Remote Desktop / VNC is out as the iMac gets used for other things too)
The only Chromecast Ultra I have in the place was quite good, streams could be left to run on it, although the client wasn't the best at re-attaching to the device, I could probably live with it.
Chromecast Audio doesn't exist apart from eBayers wanting £60+ and I'm not sure I want to pay that for an obsolete device (I can't believe there's no current alternative?!?)
It seemed to me that Tidal Connect is probably the way to go - but is there an 'affordable' Tidal Connect device? I don't want MQA and I'm certainly not willing to spend £500 on a device that supports it, so the Node 2i is out.
I bought an Arylic S10 as the Arlyic website claimed it supported Tidal Connect. It doesn't. It supports Airplay and you can use their own 4stream iOS app to start Tidal streams, but that way I lose all the discovery functionality in the Tidal client, so that's out too. If it did support Tidal Connect properly so it could be used from the Tidal app it would've been a winner, as it is, it's winging its way back to Amazon at this very moment.
I've heard of Roon, don't know if it could solve the problem but to be honest, I'd be reluctant to pay a monthly fee equivalent to the monthly fee I pay to a streaming service just for a front end.
Am I really stuck with Apple Music for this kind of functionality?
I have been using Apple Music for the past few years, my system is based around an iMac that I leave iTunes running on (in one login, other family members log in using other accounts for other reasons). I have a few AirPlay devices around the house and I control the music using the Apple Remote app to control the iMac iTunes installation from either my iPad or iPhone.
All has been well, until recently I started noticing library corruptions happening - stupid things like tracks being in the wrong order, other tracks disappearing, yet being correct and in-order on the main iMac. Apple support were painful and useless at fixing it despite being reproduced on several iOS devices and several Macs so I started looking at other streaming services.
Spotify (the obvious choice) has a nice UI, but the audio quality is horrible on the main HiFi (Apple Airport Express into Arcam Alpha 7, KEF Q5's) - the compression is very noticeable. Then I tried Tidal. Even in the base level account type, the audio quality was noticeably better, and HiFi is great. I liked the UI (although not without it's glitches) so wanted to switch over. The problem is, I can't work out how to get the same kind of experience.
I don't want my iPad constantly tied up with the Tidal client streaming to the Airport Express. That's not practical.
The desktop client doesn't allow selection of audio output - I know I can set the iMac to output all it's audio over AirPlay, and AirFoil allows me to control which speaker remotely. It's a kludge, but it kinda works. Why Spotify and Tidal can't build this into their apps, I have no idea.
But even if I get that running, there's no way of remotely controlling the Tidal desktop client (Remote Desktop / VNC is out as the iMac gets used for other things too)
The only Chromecast Ultra I have in the place was quite good, streams could be left to run on it, although the client wasn't the best at re-attaching to the device, I could probably live with it.
Chromecast Audio doesn't exist apart from eBayers wanting £60+ and I'm not sure I want to pay that for an obsolete device (I can't believe there's no current alternative?!?)
It seemed to me that Tidal Connect is probably the way to go - but is there an 'affordable' Tidal Connect device? I don't want MQA and I'm certainly not willing to spend £500 on a device that supports it, so the Node 2i is out.
I bought an Arylic S10 as the Arlyic website claimed it supported Tidal Connect. It doesn't. It supports Airplay and you can use their own 4stream iOS app to start Tidal streams, but that way I lose all the discovery functionality in the Tidal client, so that's out too. If it did support Tidal Connect properly so it could be used from the Tidal app it would've been a winner, as it is, it's winging its way back to Amazon at this very moment.
I've heard of Roon, don't know if it could solve the problem but to be honest, I'd be reluctant to pay a monthly fee equivalent to the monthly fee I pay to a streaming service just for a front end.
Am I really stuck with Apple Music for this kind of functionality?